A Shameless Plug

I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs that my wife and oldest son encouraged me to start a blog in an attempt to sell some of my books. I’ve also mentioned that they were wrong. If blogging has sold even one of my books, I’m unaware of it.

So, I’m going to try a more obvious approach now, and I’ll ask you to forgive me for doing so. I get five-star reviews, four-star reviews, and three-star reviews for my books. Here’s the proof. (If you follow the link, you’ll see an average of reviews on Good Reads.) I have won local awards for some of my work, so I’d like to think they have merit.

And, hey! Christmas 2020 is coming! For sure, if you buy one of my books as a gift, no one will be expecting it!

Why I write books

I am a Christian, and I have grown weary of profanity and secular assumptions in most of the books I read. Often, the Christian faith is denigrated and treated with contempt by secular authors. So I try to write books that anyone can read despite their faith or lack of faith, but that Christians can read without being offended.

I may not always succeed, but that’s my goal.

What I’ve tried

I’ve tried advertising on Amazon and discovered that I could increase my sales by $20.00 if I spent $80.00. One doesn’t need to be a math major to figure out this isn’t working well. This is an (obviously) unsustainable approach. I am currently advertising one of my books. Amazon has shown my book to over 5,000 people. Eleven people looked at it. No one purchased it.

So, we’re trying this

I’m going to advertise my books on my blog. I’ve probably already lost a lot of readers because of this shameless and self-serving advertisement, but here goes. By the way, you can purchase my books in softcover from Amazon and other book sellers, or you can download Kindle editions, which are less expensive.

My Big Seller

The Darkened Village is a Sherlock Holmes adventure, my ninth book, and it’s been my big seller so far.

The curate of Wenlock Edge and his wife ask for help from Sherlock Holmes. They are hesitant because the trouble in their small village seems so inconsequential, but they are worried. And they are fortunate. Something in their story peaks Holmes’s interest.

Anticipating that the solution shouldn’t be too difficult, dangerous, or take too much time, Holmes suggests to Watson that both of them could enjoy a country visit before Watson’s upcoming nuptials with the lovely Mary Morstan, and Watson readily agrees.

In short order, Holmes and Watson discover that something very odd is indeed happening in the village, many members of which have already decided who — or what — is responsible: the ghost of the Mad Monk. Strange happenings have oppressed the villagers. While they go about their daily tasks, they do so with apprehension and an expectation that something fearful is just around the corner.

And they are not far wrong.

By the way, I tried to be fair with the reader and give clues to the solution throughout the story. I think I succeeded, because (according to the reviews) some people found the solution obvious and others did not! This is a little amusing to me, because there are two things that happen in the book that I didn’t intend to happen. In fact the person who “did it,” isn’t the person I started with as the villain!

Collisions

World War III and the Uncivil War have left the city of Richmond devastated, and the United States is not in much better shape. Homeland Security is the only entity left between order and chaos, and Christopher Evans holds a coveted position as a Homeland Security agent with all the perks that accompany government service.

But Chris’ chosen life is upset in ways he would never have expected: he is assigned to a mission that has little chance of success with a partner he does like and does not trust. This mission will force him to leave the only life he knows. It could not get much worse than this, he thinks.

But he is wrong.

This is my only book that may not be suitable for young readers. Some of the characters, including the protagonist, behave in unacceptable and immoral ways. This is my longest book, and that despite the fact that it started as a short story. As my wife said, “Help! I’ve started writing and I can’t stop!” Actually, this story went places I didn’t expect it to go when I started writing. It’s had good reviews on Amazon from the few people who have read it.

The Adventures of Romain Kalbris

This book is really a translation and adaptation of the book Romain Kalbris by 19th century French author, Hector Malot, who was the Rick Riordan, Tom Clancy, and J. K. Rowling of his day. He wrote books for children, and this was one of them. While it is mostly a translation, I did change the first part of the story so I could get to the good stuff faster. I also added more dialog to the book, something a modern reader expects.

Our hero, Romain Kalbris, is a 12-year-old boy whose life is forever changed when his father, a sailor, dies a hero at sea. His mother, in an attempt to keep her son from following her husband’s footsteps and becoming a sailor, apprentices Romain to his miserly Uncle Simon, and the fun begins. This is an innocent story that provides an accurate slice of life in France in the late 1800’s because that’s when it was written, and it’s a hoot. I discovered this book when I was teaching myself French, and I’ve read it often even when my French improved enough to leave it behind just because it was so much fun.

This is the only book I’ve written specifically for children, and it has pictures provided by a former art student who has now graduated and who attends our church. This young man is a poor, struggling artist who is currently working in a tree-trimming service to make ends meet, and I think you should buy the book just so he can get his slice of the profits! By the way, his little brothers enjoyed the book immensely, and maybe your child will, too!

Solid Ground and UnReformed

Solid Ground was the first book I wrote. It is a work of non-fiction — unless you are a non-Christian and consider Christian theology to be fiction as a result. Years ago, one of my pastors said to me, “You’re going to write a book.” It surprised me because at that time, while I had been considering writing a book, I had only written unpublished short stories for the amusement of my friends, and my pastor didn’t even know that much about me!

But he was right. I wrote Solid Ground for two reasons: I wanted to help my fellow believers understand our shared faith, and I wanted those who are not Christians to have an accessible book that would help them understand why Christians believe what they believe. Most books on theology are very weighty, solemn, and (frankly) difficult slogs, and I wanted to approach theology differently. I was not raised in a Christian household, and I struggled as a young believer to understand the God I had met when I was only twelve years of age.

Solid Ground is massive tome, and I’ve broken it up into smaller books. Generally, these are eBooks (Kindle Books) because the expense of printing a book that is too small makes the book too expensive to purchase. So, for instance, The Question of Slavery and Spiritual Gender Differences are chapters in Solid Ground that are so short they are only available on Kindle as a eBook. If you want to read those chapters, you either need to have a Kindle, Kindle app, or purchase Solid Ground. But longer chapters or collections of chapters, like Spiritual Authority, How It All Ends, or The Holy Spirit can be purchased as eBooks or in paperback.

UnReformed collects some of the most popular eBooks from Solid Ground (Predestination and Freewill, The Theological Fight of the Centuries, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, and Salvation). It adds completely new chapters that I decided to write because of an incident in our church that impacted our children adversely. These chapters, “A Plea for Tolerance,” “Does Prayer Matter?” and “A Plea for Compassion” were written because I used to be “Reformed” in my theology and currently attend a Reformed church. I am no longer “Reformed.” If you don’t know what I mean when I say this — and you are a Christian — may God bless you, because you’ve been walking through the theological mind field and completely unaware of the mines!

Misadventures in Childrearing

Misadventures in Childrearing is also non-fiction, and it is made up of true stories (with just a teensy-weensy bit of exaggeration from time to time) about our family. The stories in it are approved by my wife and children. One of our friend’s teen-aged daughter read it and told her mother, “I didn’t realize Mr. C. was so funny!” My oldest son told his friends, “If you want to know how bad I was as a child, you need to read this book.” Misadventures in Childrearing is a light-hearted romp through our lives raising four children — and our children putting up with two parents.

I was surprised when I saw that someone was attempting to sell a used copy of this book for over $50.00 when a new copy is only $7.29. I guess whoever it was must have really like the book!

A Little Bit of Everything

A Little Bit of Everything was my first fiction collection. It has short stories, novelettes, and novellas in several genres: mysteries, humor, science-fiction, and horror. They are available in this collection or on Kindle eBooks.

In “The Case of the MelRoy Theatre Ghost“, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson tackle a haunting by a ghost of a man who may not be dead. This has also been a big seller, perhaps because it’s a Sherlock Holmes mystery, and I mention it in the forward of The Darkened Village.

In the winner of the 1984 Samuel Freiberg Memorial award for mystery, a young man learns upon returning from work that “The Name of the Frame” is his own when he discovers a dead body in his third story apartment. I used to write mystery stories for Christmas and challenge my friends to figure them out. I think this was one of my best.

In an all too possible future world, Clone Tank Nurse Susan Bachman learns that her job wasn’t quite what she expected, and she is no longer certain “With Whom I Had Been Speaking.” I had thought this novelette complete, only to discover years later that my characters insisted the rest of their story needed to be written. And so, I wrote the novella “Knowing with Whom I Had Been Speaking” to complete their story. They are both available on Kindle, but together they were long enough to be considered a book. The book Speaking contains both stories, and it is available in paperback.

Fred Dorflinger shares close quarters with the austere Rev. Mr. Charles J. Hostetter and learns that history repeats itself when “The Dip Takes a Plunge” (Winner of the 1983 John T. Ruhl Memorial award for humor). Actually, many of the incidents in this book occurred to me — except for the ministers and the dip incident …

A young Fred Dorflinger makes a bad decision and finds himself on the wrong side of the law with very funny results in “My Life of Crime“. By the way, this short story was also based on true events a co-worker related to me about her teenage son and his friends. All their names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Finally, the Baron Rokosky’s castle is invaded by mysterious intruders, and he learns that “The Blood Is the Life.” It is also collected in my second fiction anthology, which is:

Brushes with the Supernatural

You might by skeptical that a Christian can (or should) write horror stories, but I’ve discovered that the introduction of the supernatural in a story also opens the way for God to appear — either directly or in allegory. These kinds of stories also permitted me to address current cultural phenomena obliquely. One of my friend’s children read this book and declared it “creepy,” and he told his father he would never look at me in the same way ever again.

Not all of these are “horror” stories. But all of them are a brush with the supernatural. I mentioned “The Blood Is the Life” earlier because is also collected in A Little Bit of Everything. It’s in this collection, too. All of these stories are available as Kindle eBooks.

In the first story, Melissa Nelson is faced with “The Scarecrow of Bachmieir Farm“, and she begins to doubt her sanity as she becomes certain it is moving when no one is looking. (When I read this story to my wife, she told me she had problems driving past cornfields after having heard it.) This is the most traditional horror story in the anthology.

Teenagers discover “She Is Not Dead, But Sleepeth” when they dabble with something they think is only a party game. I first told this story “on the spot” during a long bus trip when I was a teenager, making it up as I went along to help pass the time. My friends who were listening were wide-eyed and on the edge of their seats. I only afterwards admitted I was simply making it up.

Atheist Colton Bremerton is forced to ask for help from the Christians he despises and learns “The Cost of an Exorcism” might be more than he is willing to pay. While this is a work of fiction, is it based (loosely) on things friends have related to me. Later, I discovered that some of the things I thought I had invented in this story had actually been the experience of someone I knew. But don’t believe too much of it. It is a work of fiction.

Alesio DeLuca responds to his sister-in-law’s urgent call for help and belatedly realizes he might not be a match for “That Which Seethes Within.” This very short story actually started as what I thought would be my first book. It might yet develop into a book with a very different ending. But for now, this is all there is.

Faith healers Dakota and Emily Peterson learn how easily the “The Road to Hell” is traveled. This is not a horror story at all, just a brush with the angelic that we might all hope to avoid.

Aging Patience Bellamy finds “The Cuckoo” and makes a decision that has far reaching and long term consequences she could never have imagined. This is the longest story in the collection, and it can also be purchased in paperback.

And finally, Tyemon meets “The Antrix and the Aeoli“, two mythological beings he discovers are all too real. This is a story that is more fantasy and allegory than horror.

Coming?

I am currently working on book number ten, something that is very different from anything I have ever written previously. The first draft is nearly done. Hopefully, it will be out in early 2020, though that depends on work, home, and other factors and commitments over which I have no control.

Thank you if you’ve stayed with me this far. If you decide to read one of my books or stories and you like it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. The more people who give me good reviews, the more likely Amazon’s search algorithms will display it as an option for those who are browsing for books.

And if you don’t like something I’ve written? Well, I hope that never happens!